Over blizzard-blasted steppe
We followed the scent
Of smoke...
The venerable Fathers swung from the rafters
The Mothers, poor dears, from the chandeliers
The Sons, they were hung upside down
The Daughters still haunt us
For not one soul was found.
The horses were harnessed then slaughtered
The swine, those not taken, were burnt to crisp bacon
Dogs skinned alive; cats weighted, then drowned -
You will hear their howls yet
With an ear to the ground.
Blood wantonly spilt wore them as a quilt
Each rusting hilt of sword shaft bore an epitaph
This hamlet will be ploughed, become an earthen mound
Where a cold wind carries a massacre
In a rustling shroud of sound.
The storm allayed its fury
It stopped snowing
As we left.
Author notes
An aftermath. An ending bereft of beginnings. How often have smoking ruins been the last warped recorded remnant of peoplesī lives.
A piece of a flurry of scribblings depicting the flipside of martial glory.
You have been warned.
Does it evoke timeless history?
Comments
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It does bring in front of me all those horrible events that Ancient, Medieval or the Modern world has faced during war. The razing of a city, town, village or community is the highest form of hatred/revenge. It is a gr8 piece to hav einvoked those emotions ... u have done justice to it. Nicely done ... keep writing.
- Abhi
. Rewarded 6
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It appalls us to read of the bloodlust of our distant warlike ancestors as they swept through Europe and Asia. We think perhaps we have become better than that, better than the massacres of WW1 and WW2 , better than Srebnica. We look over the fields where the low sun on a winter's afternoon casts the shadows of humps and bumps which were once places where people lived, loved, farmed, hunted, sang songs, recited sagas.
Your poem caught the ambience of the cold silent air that surrounds such places where life was erased and the blood soaked the scorched earth. The rhymes in stanza 2 seemed at first trite, but then added to the horror with a kind of gallows humour that echoed the terrible laughter of the berserkers.
I found the poem interestingly written, with unusual cadences- arresting. The opening and closing strophes are perfect frames for the detailed narrative... Rewarded 8
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Thanx Deriva!
Though I´m sure for some readers the deliberate triteness and the illdisciplined cadences can be offputting I´m very glad you say you found them arresting.
Scorched earth was just what I had in mind when inscribing this scrawl. There´s such a poignant vacuity in such dearths of presense. Certain topographical highlights retain this haunted feel even many centuries after the original denizens were culled and their cultures lost forever.
Cheers for a great comment, Deriva!
Warm regards
gG
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War is a terrible thing. Greed and aversion could easily be the black holes of the mind that will push us to extinction.
Bill
. Rewarded 4
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Cheers Bill.
Yepp. Either that or we ll fuck ourselves to death contracting AIDS offshoots and overpopulation.
(Hmm I think I know which alternitive I d prefer)
gG
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Wars there always were, as if decreed. There is something in the soul of the Human Race that cannot subsist without copious bloodletting and mangled victims. This poem looks at it after the fact, when the gory fun in done and the perpetrators have gone on to ever more inventive ways to prove their superiority.
Incredibly evocative, there should be no surprise that its aftershocks reverberate in the form of verse.
War as Extreme Sport
On TV they are advertising a set
of War DVD's at a bargain price,
shouting "The Glory that is War!"
Anthology of images, there we get
the thousand ways to kill, concise
précis of slaughter, how bizarre
to mesh mangled flesh, bloody, yet
somehow acceptable as a prize
of battle, being of enemy, and afar!
Life is cheap when like arcade vet
the player zaps for final sacrifice
as if ciphers. Glory's glee, vulgar
tones of pleasure without regret
from childhood. Electronic device
teaches gory death, as if a stellar
feat and for humanity, less humane.
But Money makes all things right, and
in sport like war it's an honor now,
to die.
I don't have time to write poems. Thank you for making it easy.
Terrible Terry
. Rewarded 4
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An intriguing departure, gG, from your usual more buoyant rhythms, save one-- I know others are seeing Iraq and Darfur in this poem, but I was reminded of your "Concentrate Your Love"-- the snow made me think Auschwitz and Dachau, Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five, with firebombing, and ash mixing in wih the snow.
I agree with Lad, I like this more reflective side of you, though there's no shortage of your trademark mastery of rhymes and images. I was struck by, "Each rusting hilt of sword shaft bore an epitaph/This hamlet will be ploughed. . ." The Biblical allusion by itself would have been enough to make those lines stand out, but I am awed by the idea of sword shafts as tombstones, the sheer number of dead that have fallen by them left as fertilizer.
I also find it interesting that you end by saying, "as we left." Are "we" the conquerors or the survivors? The conquerors, it can be assumed, are moving on to continue conquering. The survivors to flee, refugee being a commonplace reality in many parts of the world.
Another excellent, thought-provoking piece.
Pie
. Rewarded 4
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Cheers CP
Interesting parallel to Concentrate you mention, Pie. I do see a certain sense of "awkwardness" in these two as the narrator struggles to find words and terms to describe the unspeakable. To do this a sense of detachment is vital and yet this highly understandable response often results in a surreal evocation of the horror relayed. In both there is a flirtation with humour - which could justly be perceived as extremely distasteful or disrespectful (as Man of Harlech reacted to Concentrate). The rhyme here is flippant, cheesy almost, whilst intro and ending are curt remarks punctuating detachment.
In a previous stripped-down version of this the rhymes were more singsong and the non-rhyme more matter-of-fact.
It achieved the objective better I think, but I just didn t "dig" it, and I m too much of a coward to resist poetic badinage.
For me "Brief" is a brief that doesn t satisfy but then it wouldn t be a brief would it. So I m trapped conceptually. At least with this format.
Intriguing thought concerning who was reporting the massacre, Celestial! It stopped me in my tracks. I d figured these were impartial observers reporting after the fact, but your twist adds a whole new ghastlier possibility: roving bands of war-correspondents and paparazzi pillagers scouring the bleak preCNN landscape in search of news they can make themselves!
Cheers Pie
gG
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"It stopped snowing as we left"...
...and the blizzard moved relentlessly on to another god-forsaken place. And so it has gone since the beginning.
This poem is masterful, gG; you softened your dictional tricks in this one, letting the brazen images speak for themselves a bit more than in your usual style. I do like this gentler vocabulary, these softer bones and the plainer flesh on them. Really good read for me!
I think of Iraq: all through the millenia, meant to last millenia: its palaces, its vibrance, its waterways and gardens, its golden philosophies and universities and brilliant legal system - they'd become dusty ruins long before we arrived to make it all even worse - "a rustling shroud of sound".
You speak of being warned. Ok. But warnings are for what is unexpected. What you image in this poem is wretchedly expected in all times, everywhere. Sadly, I think the much-vaunted notion of "Progress" is a load of crap. Man is a wolf to man, period.
Good, damn good poem!
Lad
. Rewarded 4
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Nothing to add
to your kind and generous review, Lad. I wholeheartedly concur on the ongoing cultural catastrophe in Mesapotamia - the cradle of civilisation.
Cultural genocide in the form of the Saddam´s draining and slaughter of the Marsh Arabs destroyed forever a unique society going back thousands of years. Even the mongols, culture killers on a par with the catholic church, were unable to achieve that.
Linear "progress" is indeed a mirage badly drawn upon the surface of Cyclical Time.
A mirage akin to the swaying forests of reeds flickering over leagues of dry mud currently observed in southern Iraq.
Cheers
gG
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The war to end wars ...didn't. And your salutory depiction of these almost undepicted images is , as you suggest, perhaps more timely than most of us think. Never underestimate the power of denial. But then - it could never happen HERE. Could it?
The form is interesting and tight and the poem reads better aloud. I would quibble with the flippant tone of 'poor dears' in the second stanza. It is so unmistakeable and sets a precedent which seems to be simply forgotten as the poem goes on to adopt a more serious tone in keeping with the subject.
In this poem, sordid imagery is appropriate - and there is precious little of it. You ARE a contrary one! A little gem from the Dark One. Liked it. >W<
. Rewarded 4
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Folorn Warlore
Cheers, Windhover. I was attempting a more distant tone in this depiction. A brief observers journal of a tragedy all too common.
You might be right concerning poor dears but it was a rhyme I couldn t resist I m afraid and I hoped it would enhance the image of matronly innocence and virtue abused.
This is probably the lesser piece of the three warlore (written from an observer´s perspective) I ve recently completed. Impartiality in the face of horror being the underlying theme. I m not quite there yet though.
I agree it is a read-aloud poem rather than a torchbearer for literary subtlety.
gG
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hey gG
creepily eerie you feel yourself picking through the rubble of bloody history.
a very sad testimony of humanity or lack therof. and even sadder is that more sites like this are being created.
dave. Rewarded 4
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Even as we speak
Yeah. It could be Darfur (except for the snow).
Cheers Dave.
gG
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